VacationSelector
Turquoise water off Giftun Island, Hurghada
HurghadaTurquoise water off Giftun Island
The Sanctuary of Truth by the sea, Pattaya
PattayaThe Sanctuary of Truth by the sea

Photos: Hurghada by Andrey Korchagin, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Pattaya by Matrix, Pexels License.

Hurghada or Pattaya?

Our verdict in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities, and the climate month by month, so you can choose for your trip.

Choose Hurghada for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • beaches
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Hurghada’s own page.

Choose Pattaya for

  • nightlife
  • food and drink
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Pattaya’s own page.

Scoreboard

Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.

Beaches & swimming. Hurghada 84, Pattaya 66: Hurghada leads by 18 points.
Food & drink. Hurghada 34, Pattaya 58: Pattaya leads by 24 points.
Culture & sights. Hurghada 14, Pattaya 30: Pattaya leads by 16 points.
Nightlife. Hurghada 40, Pattaya 76: Pattaya leads by 36 points.
Nature & outdoors. Hurghada 72, Pattaya 40: Hurghada leads by 32 points.
Day trips. Hurghada 30, Pattaya 52: Pattaya leads by 22 points.
Good for families. Hurghada 62, Pattaya 55: Hurghada leads by 7 points.
Getting around. Hurghada 22, Pattaya 36: Pattaya leads by 14 points.
Shopping & style. Hurghada 24, Pattaya 42: Pattaya leads by 18 points.
Affordability. Hurghada 80, Pattaya 84: Pattaya leads by 4 points.
Live music & performing arts. Hurghada 10, Pattaya 30: Pattaya leads by 20 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Hurghada 44, Pattaya 58: Pattaya leads by 14 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Hurghada and Pattaya.

Your match

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.

Hurghada
43match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and beaches with your weighting.

Pattaya
Best match
52match

Wins on nightlife and food and drink with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Hurghada in July

37 °Cdaytime high
28 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
28 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Pattaya in July

32 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
102 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
HurghadaPattaya

Where the figures come from

Pattaya's temperatures are measured 31 km from the centre, at Sattahip.

Pattaya has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Pattaya's sunshine is measured 86 km from the centre, at Bangna Agromet / Ban Khlong Samrong.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Hurghada: 1991-2020 normals, Hurguada (15.2 km from centre). Pattaya: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1961-1990, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Sattahip (31.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureHurghadaPattaya
Official languageArabicThai
CurrencyEgyptian Pound (EGP)Baht (THB)
SocketsCF220 V, 50 HzABCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+2, UTC+3 in summerUTC+7
Emergency numberPolice 122, ambulance 123, fire 180Police 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199
Elevation11 m35 m
Main airportHurghada International Airport (HRG)9 km from centre111 non-stop destinationsSuvarnabhumi Airport (BKK)83 km from centre150 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year15 days-

By the numbers

MeasureHurghadaPattaya
City population214,247119,532
Museums within 10 km10
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Hurghada or Pattaya somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Rainfall where no rain gauge is within 25 km is from the TerraClimate 1991-2020 climatology (Abatzoglou et al. 2018, Scientific Data), read at the city. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Non-stop route lists from the "Airlines and destinations" tables on English Wikipedia airport articles, by Wikipedia contributors, reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Currency from the ISO 4217 register maintained by SIX, cross-checked against country data from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). Price level from World Bank open data (PPP conversion factor for private consumption and official exchange rate), CC BY 4.0. Time zones from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0); clock offsets computed from the IANA time zone database. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.